The Happy Couple: An absolutely unputdownable and gripping psychological thriller

by Samantha Hayes

  ‘Spit it out, then,’ she’d replied, wanting to get on with following up on the lead, desperate to drive back out to Solihull, perhaps take a journey on the same bus at the same time of day. Hand out some more flyers. Pace the streets, calling out his name as she went.

  ‘I’m pregnant.’

  Jo hated herself for pausing, for feeling smacked in the face, for almost wanting to hang up on her best friend at what was the happiest time of her life. And she hated herself for not immediately finding the right words, for not congratulating her without delay, for not squealing with excitement. A baby! Oh Lou, I’m so pleased for you and Archie! And finally, she hated herself for the bitter taste in her mouth, the ache in her heart, the ache in her empty belly. The two gaping holes in her life.

  ‘Pregnant?’ she’d said after what seemed like an eternity. ‘I…’

  The tears had filled her eyes then, flooding her vision with regret as she struggled to speak. Say anything, dammit… Just make her know you’re OK with this.

  ‘Lou… that’s…’

  She loathed that she was making Louise’s happiness her own misery.

  ‘That’s just fabulous news, Lou. Oh, I’m so very pleased for you both.’

  There. She’d managed it. Said the right thing.

  ‘Jo, are you still there?’

  What did I do wrong to make him leave?

  It is a question Jo has asked herself a thousand times over the last eleven months. And now she is asking it a thousand times more on what is turning into an interminable journey. The M25 is at a complete standstill.

  ‘What did I do wrong?’ she whispers, drumming her fingers on the wheel, glancing across at a young couple in the car next to her, laughing and joking together. Behind them, she sees a baby fastened in its seat, staring out of the window, transfixed by the orange lights above. Jo turns away, tears in her eyes.

  ‘Jo, are you there…?’

  She’d never wanted to believe Will had left because they’d not been able to conceive, that her body wouldn’t fuse with his, making her worry they weren’t compatible. Nature’s way of telling them they shouldn’t have got together in the first place. But Will wasn’t shallow and accusing. He was completely the opposite, in fact, embracing her flaws – loving her flaws – knowing that if Jo felt good about herself, then he did too.

  ‘Hello, Jo… Are you there? Can you hear me?’

  The first time she’d taken a test, they’d done it together, setting an alarm down to the exact second when to check the stick. After doing what she’d needed to do in the bathroom, Jo had set it on the shelf and Will had come in. They’d both stood there watching, waiting for the lines – or line – to appear. Each second had seemed like a year and, as the wetness seeped up the results window, Jo’s heart beat hard inside her chest.

  ‘Are you sure?’ she’d said afterwards as Will had held the stick under the window, examining it, trying to catch sight of a faint second line.

  Will turned to her, taking her by the shoulders. His dark eyes bored into hers. ‘I’m sure, Jo-jo,’ he’d said in that rich and soothing voice of his. ‘Not this time… but maybe next.’

  Jo had rested her head on his shoulder then and they’d stood there together, taking in the news that this month at least, Jo wasn’t carrying his baby.

  ‘Yeah, we’ll get lucky soon, eh?’ she’d said when the disappointment had sunk in. It was only their first try, after all. She knew it could take a few attempts.

  A few attempts… Jo thinks now, ramming the car into first gear as the vehicles in front creep forward.

  ‘Jo, are you OK? Say something…’

  She jumps at the sound of Louise’s voice. ‘Yes, Lou, I’m so sorry. Traffic’s horrendous. I was just concentrating. Do you want me to come back, to look after you?’

  ‘Oh goodness, no. Definitely no need for that. You go and enjoy yourself. I’ve got Archie by my side, don’t forget.’

  Then she apologised profusely.

  ‘It’s fine, it’s fine,’ Jo replied. Somehow mustering a laugh. She was getting better at brushing off the thoughtless remarks, making people feel less awkward about saying the wrong thing. ‘You’re allowed to have a husband that’s not disappeared,’ she added, gripping the wheel even tighter.

  Twelve

  Then

  During that first shared pizza with Will after rehearsals (the first of many we had over the next few months), I managed to knock over two drinks, spill the contents of my handbag on the floor, lose my glasses so I struggled to see what I was eating, get stringy cheese stuck in my hair and fall off the banquette. Will was suddenly up out of his chair and beside me, hoisting me up as gracefully as he could before I’d even realised what had happened. But the shock still jolted through me, still made me see stars.

  Made me fall in love.

  ‘Is that all it takes?’ Will said smoothly, shielding me from the other diners with his broad body. My hands were still wrapped in his as I regained my balance. ‘Just one beer?’ He’d given me a squeeze then, making sure I was steady, barely batting an eyelid at my latest misfortune on top of everything else.

  I slid back onto the shiny plastic bench seat, abandoning my visit to the toilet for now as my cheeks burned scarlet. ‘Yeah, I’m a cheap date,’ I said, clearing my throat, rolling my eyes, laughing, coughing – anything to hide my embarrassment. ‘I thought… I thought the seat was continuous and joined in with the next one,’ I whispered, pointing to the gap between my bench and the one at the table beside us. ‘I was just sliding along to get out and bang, no bench. I’m not drunk,’ I said loudly enough for those nearby to hear. Some other diners glanced over, one looking concerned, a couple of others still laughing. I shook my head, blushing.

  ‘I like it,’ Will said, reaching over and removing my hands from my face. ‘You’re real. You’re honest. You’re you. But I don’t like that you may have hurt yourself. Are you OK?’

  ‘Yes, yes, I’m fine. Only my pride dented,’ I said with a laugh, finding a little humour in the situation. Though I could already feel the thrum of a bruise blooming on my thigh. ‘I can be so clumsy. It’s amazing I manage to make such intricate clothing without more mishaps. My passion is making bridal wear – so much lace, fine fabrics and detailed stitching. I guess I’m just a little…’ I trailed off, deciding I oughtn’t to say it.

  ‘I get clumsy when I’m nervous, too. But it mainly happens when I’m in the company of someone I really like. Someone very special.’ Will raised his right hand slowly in a grand gesture and purposefully knocked over his bottle of beer in a slow-motion way. The neck hung over the table, the contents spilling out and spattering his feet as he made a fake shocked face. ‘See? Totally clumsy right this minute. I must be in the company of someone very special indeed.’

  I stared at him, almost disbelieving. Who is this man? Why does he seem to just get me? We seem so similar… I couldn’t help my eyes widening, the grin forming.

  Before I knew it, I was laughing. Then belly-laughing, picking up a piece of pizza and shoving it into my mouth virtually whole, struggling to get it in because of its size and also because I was spitting crumbs and cheese back onto my plate, getting tomato sauce on my chin. ‘Me…’ I said through a doughy mouthful. ‘I comfort eat when I’m with someone I really, really like. As though I just can’t get enough.’

  The days turned into weeks, which then turned into months. Loose summer dresses and floppy hats transformed into sweaters and boots right through to thick coats and scarves wrapped around our necks when we met up. Will and I spent time with each other in and out of the theatre, winding our way through the seasons in a blur of happiness. I was at the rep fairly often those few weeks, as and when alterations or repairs were needed for the costumes. It was just Margot and me, as we couldn’t afford to employ a runner to do the laborious and seemingly unending trips to the dry-cleaner’s and laundry but, between us, we managed to get the job done. With the theatre having been let down by their last seamstr
esses, Margot and I had stepped in with our bid for the contract at just the right moment, which had a knock-on effect for our dressmaking services, especially bridal. In exchange for good rates, the theatre included an advertisement for Sew Perfect in each programme. It was just what we needed to take our business to the next level.

  ‘You’re the first woman I’ve ever thought I could…’ Will had said just before that first Christmas, a week before the end of term. But he’d trailed off, distracted by the cast of fifteen-year-olds buzzing around him. It was the opening night of A Christmas Carol at Wroxdown High, where he taught, and I’d offered my services with the costumes.

  ‘Could what?’ I glanced up at him from the hem I was restitching, fighting the smile. I knew what I wanted to hear but he’d not actually said it. We’d been seeing each other for a few months now, and things had quickly got serious between us.

  ‘The first woman I’ve ever thought I could live with,’ he’d whispered in my ear, bending down to the low stool on which I was perched.

  The inner smile bloomed slightly ahead of the one forming on my face. No one had ever said anything quite so life-affirming to me before. It was far more of a compliment than the usual ‘Your hair looks amazing’, or ‘I love your lips/face/legs/laugh’ I’d had from men before. But I instantly found myself fighting the automatic pang of fear that made my heart race: my mother and father – or rather, my mother. They’d only met Will once (once was enough, and I’d promised Will I’d never put him through it again, though he was unfazed, said it had gone over his head). But I knew my mother, how gradually and persistently she separated and isolated me from people she didn’t approve of – usually boyfriends. And I’d immediately sensed she didn’t approve of Will – with Dad not daring to disagree. As their only daughter, she’d made it her life’s work to shape and mould me into the person she thought I should be. And failed. I’d fought hard for happiness, to become who I wanted to be, to know who I truly was. And I knew Mum was projecting onto me whatever she unconsciously sensed was lacking in her own life but didn’t have the self-awareness to fix. I consoled myself with knowing that at nearly twenty-seven, I had plenty of time to make my own mistakes.

  ‘Right,’ Will boomed at the class in his teacher’s voice, but similarly sounding as if he were making a grand entrance onstage. He was able to take command of a group of excitable teenagers, hold an audience captive for two hours or, at the opposite end of the scale, he could sink deep into his own mind and thoughts, as if he needed time to recharge. It was one of the things I loved most about him, that he knew when to take time for himself, to reset his mind.

  ‘Overload,’ he’d once said, not long after we’d met, almost as if it was a warning. ‘It comes easy to me. Almost too easy, and it’s a bit like a drug, as if I know it’s bad for me but I can’t help myself.’ I never forgot the dramatic pause. ‘If I’m not mindful of when to stop,’ he’d whispered, glancing at the ceiling, ‘sometimes I fear there’ll be no way back.’ His eyes had flashed to me then – waiting a beat before closing, as if the curtains were coming down.

  For the remainder of the evening, I held onto what he’d said – that I was the one woman he felt he could live with – trying not to overlay it on the other comment. I shuffled into my seat, parents and grandparents standing up as I passed along the row, apologising as I went, and prepared to watch the first night of the play. Will had spent two terms casting, producing, directing and whatever else it took to get a group of teenagers to remember their lines, come in on time, sing in tune and, above all, enjoy themselves – but, while I admired what Will had done with the kids, clapping furiously after each scene or song, I couldn’t get what he’d said out of my mind, as if the thought of us living together had blown up the things I’d chosen to overlook.

  Sometimes I fear there’ll be no way back…

  And then I couldn’t help wondering if my mother was right, her words tap, tap, tapping at my brain. Making me wonder if we weren’t right for each other. Thing is, I couldn’t think of a single reason why.

  ‘If you ask me,’ my mother had said on the phone the day after Will and I had gone to dinner at my parents’ country home, ‘he’s acting. He’s not who he says he is. I can smell it a mile off. You can do better.’

  ‘Mum, you’ve met him once for a couple of hours. You grilled him to within an inch of his life. Why do you have to be so judgemental? Every single time I bring someone home it’s the same. Please…’ I’d felt the tears welling up – tears of frustration that my mother would never change. If only she would see my point of view, accept that I knew best what made me happy – even if she only managed it for a day – I’d feel validated in some small way at least. But my mother was unrelenting. And now, sitting watching the play, even though Will had just confided a good thing to me – that I was the only woman he’d yet felt he could live with – here I was, wondering if my mother was right. That he was somehow acting.

  Thirteen

  Now

  The rain has stopped completely as Jo drives into East Wincombe, her eyes flashing to her satnav screen every few seconds. In two hundred metres, your destination will be on the left. Since leaving the main road to turn off towards the village, the countryside has taken on a deeper, darker shade of black, as if she is being swallowed up by the night, the trees closing in around her. And she can almost smell the sea, knowing it’s only a few miles away. She and Will always loved walking along the beach together, or taking a clifftop stroll, allowing the gusts of wind to carry their excited chatter about the future out to sea… children, a home in the country, dogs, everything perfect. Jo loved nothing more than to discuss plans, hopes and dreams with her husband, but now she’s wondering if he ever felt the same, if she was simply talking to herself – just as she does now to fill the lonely nights.

  Jo suddenly steps hard on the brakes as she rounds a bend more sharply than she was anticipating, lurching forward as she immediately spots the house sign on a gate to the left – Hawthorn Lodge. She reverses back a few yards, wary of the blind corner behind her, and indicates, turning into the gravelled driveway. A thick hedge overhangs the gateway, making a black arch above as she enters, her eyes focusing on the old red-brick cottage set back from the road, the gravel crunching under the wheels as she pulls up near the front door. A dense copse of trees surrounds the house, making the already dark night even blacker. There are only a couple of street lights in the lane, and the coach lamp above the door isn’t giving out much of a glow. Jo stares up at her new home for the next ten days – wondering if it is Will’s home too. As she pulls on the handbrake and switches off the engine, she feels herself shaking. She’s not sure if she can face whatever it is she’s about to discover.

  ‘For God’s sake,’ she mutters to herself, undoing her seat belt. ‘You already know there’s no one home. So stop worrying, OK? At least for tonight,’ she adds in an attempt to comfort herself.

  She glances at the car clock – 10.23 p.m. Not bad, considering the traffic, but she’s still exhausted from the long drive. Wants nothing more than a cup of tea and bed. But what if it’s Will’s bed? she suddenly thinks. How will I ever get to sleep, knowing he’s been in it with another woman all this time, while I’ve been worrying and grieving and putting my life on hold? Any hint that that’s the case and she resolves she’ll sleep on the sofa, if not leave immediately.

  Trying to put the thought from her mind, Jo gets out of the car and goes to the boot to fetch her bag. She stops, hand on her case, glancing around as though she’s being watched.

  Did she hear something? A twig cracking… something rustling in the bushes? She shakes her head. She’s being stupid. All she can hear now is a car cruising past on the lane and a dog barking.

  Now that the car headlights are off and her eyes have grown accustomed to the dark, she thinks she sees a flash of light coming from the neighbouring property. She freezes for a moment, hearing a noise – a door opening, perhaps, or a window closing. When everyth
ing is silent again, she heads up to the front door to find the keys. Suzanne messaged earlier to say she’d leave them underneath a flowerpot.

  Jo fumbles in her pocket for her phone and puts on the torch. ‘Well, there’s the pot,’ she says, upturning it then looking around to see if there’s another. ‘But there are no keys.’ She moves it aside completely, patting the ground underneath again, seeing that her hand is rummaging amongst woodlice and worms in the torchlight. She recoils, making a disgusted noise. ‘Great,’ she says, straightening up and wiping her hand on her jeans. She tips back her head, staring up at the sky, amazed by the number of stars as she wonders if she should phone Suzanne.

  ‘Is that you, Jo? Hello?’

  A man’s voice. Coming from behind. Footsteps crunching the gravel.

  Jo freezes. Feels herself wobbling, thinking she may topple over completely.

  Will…?

  She forces herself to turn round but it’s as though she’s sunk up to her neck in the gravel. Say something, for heaven’s sake…

  ‘Jo?’ the voice says again. ‘Is that you?’

  ‘Will… Will…’ Slowly, she turns, her vision blurry, her entire body trembling. She wants to swallow but her mouth is so dry. She’s imagined this moment a thousand times during the last year, how it will play out, when and where he’ll come back to her. She never imagined in a million years it would be on another woman’s driveway near the South Coast.

  In her mind, she’d envisaged them staring at each other for the briefest of moments, their eyes drawing them back to how things were that morning before he left for work, before falling into each other’s arms, the air thick with innocent explanations of what had happened. None of which she can remember at this exact moment.